US to sue Google for online ads

Washington: The US government is reportedly preparing to sue Google for its anti-market ad practices where it allegedly monopolized online ads.

The Justice Department and a group of state attorneys general are likely to file antitrust lawsuits against Alphabet-owned Google, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Friday that cited people familiar with the matter.

The Justice Department is moving toward bringing a case as soon as this summer. "Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican is likely to file a case, probably in the fall," according to the report. On a call with the media, Paxton said the primary focus of the investigation was the broad reach of Google's online advertising network.

"We think Google has 7,000 data points on just about every human being alive. They control the buy-side of online advertising, the sell-side and the market which we are concerned gives them way too much power," Paxton was quoted as saying.

In a statement, Google said: "We continue to engage with the ongoing investigations led by the Department of Justice and Attorney General Paxton and we don't have any updates or comments on speculation".

Google has turned over more than 100,000 documents to investigators as part of the ongoing anti-trust probe. The case, if filed, would be the first major US antitrust action against a tech giant since the Bill Clinton administration's pursuit of Microsoft in the 1990s.

In September last year, Attorneys General of 50 US states, led by Texas, announced a probe into Google's anti-trust practices, focusing on whether the tech giant is overly dominant in the online advertising market and in internet searches.